From Latin 'corvinus' meaning 'raven-like,' related to the Roman cognomen Corvinus.
Corvin is drawn directly from the Latin 'corvus,' meaning 'raven,' a bird freighted with mythology and symbol across virtually every culture that has encountered it. The raven is sacred to Odin in Norse tradition, a messenger and omen; in Celtic lore it is associated with the goddess Morrigan, battle, and prophetic wisdom; in Native American traditions it is a trickster and creator. A name meaning raven, then, is among the oldest and most cosmically loaded a person can carry.
The name's most towering historical bearer is Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary from 1458 to 1490, one of the great Renaissance monarchs of Europe. He earned the epithet 'Corvinus' — raven — from the raven on his family's coat of arms, and he wore it magnificently: he assembled one of the finest royal libraries of his age, patronized humanist scholars, and built the Hunyadi dynasty into a regional power. Corvinus University in Budapest still bears his name today, and his raven sigil appears on countless Hungarian monuments.
As a given name, Corvin is rare and literary in the best sense — the kind of name that appears in fantasy epics and historical novels, yet feels entirely at home in the real world for a child whose parents want something both ancient and uncommon. It is distinguished without being eccentric, dark without being gloomy, and carries the kind of intellectual gravitas that the raven has symbolized for millennia.